Reanimation
by Nehszriah
Summary: Part four of my OC project. Jon recollects the first time he realized what Brigid's power was really all about.


Here is part four of my Heroes OC Project, which is considerably shorter than the third installment. I do not own _Heroes_, Tim Kring does. Please review after reading. It helps tremendously. This is also going to go up on deviantART within a few days.

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Reanimation

What I saw that day was unreal. I never thought that Brigid could have ever lost control like that again. I didn't really understand what she could do at first, even after Greg and her showed me that teddy bear. Luke made it worst. A kid's toy compared to one of those big honkin' trains is sort of a big difference. Besides, they knew perfectly well they could get one of those crazy automated toys from Japan with some money from Greg's uncle and I wouldn't know the difference. I'm not good with technology like that. Makes me feel weird. I feel better with some power tools in my hand. At least I know all what those can do when I use them.

Well, at least I can say that what had been done did wasn't done on purpose.

It was just a while after coming back from the UP. We had to stay with Mr. H in order to make sure he didn't loose it. With Ruby dead, we had no idea about what he would do. We switched him between Greg's uncle's place and my grandma's house for two weeks before the police finally gave us back Ruby's body for the funeral. We all seemed to do pretty good, you know? It was hard, but the three of us did hold it together, as well as Mr. H. Ruby was his little princess and his entire life. I wouldn't have been too surprised if the single funeral became a double to be telling the truth. There was something just not right about everything that day.

Now, I'll admit right now, I thought everything about the day was sort of odd to begin with. I'm not Catholic, but Ruby was. The funeral was at her church and I felt very out of place. There were a lot of little old Italian and Polish women there before the service that kept on glaring at me. Greg noticed this and once he dragged me to the bathroom to tuck in my shirt, I realized the obvious that they thought I would cause trouble, even though I was actually dressed in nice church-going clothes. I hate it when they do that. I'm black in the suburbs, not a gunman on a plane.

"Can't we go anywhere that'll get us away from them?" I asked Greg quietly as we stood around over by the casket.

"No," Greg sighed, swinging his head back slightly to crack his neck. "We better stay here. I know you don't like it Jon, but we don't have to come here again after this."

"Good," I answered. After a little bit I began talking again. "Do you two know what's going on when we start this thing?"

"No idea," Greg said. "I'm Lutheran. I bet the rituals are probably different in a way. Shouldn't be too weird though. I mean, Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic… it's all Christian, right?"

"I guess." I folded my arms and shifted in place. I still didn't feel very comfortable. It was, well, awkward.

I looked over towards Ruby's casket and sighed. Brigid was standing in front of it, crying just a little bit. We all had cried a lot before coming, so I had a feeling she was going to be okay. I remember once Brigid telling us that she had never been to a real funeral with a real dead body. All her family was either still over in Scotland alive or had been cremated, so she never got to see someone that'd been embalmed before. I think the shock was pretty bad. She barely moved. She barely talked. It scared me, I guess. I don't even think she heard the fat, old pastor when he told her to move away from the casket because Greg and I had to go over and get her.

"Keep it together," Greg hissed in her ear. I made sure that I made eye contact with her before we took our seats right in the front where Mr. H would be sitting. She looked so sad, I could barely take it. I know Greg wanted her to just let it all out if she needed to. He had liked Brigid since tenth grade, so her being shook up was probably tearing him up inside.

Mr. H closed the casket and the service started. We sang some song to start off. Well, everyone else sang the song. I looked at the words and decided to just move my lips and look like I was singing. That's the problem with Catholic church songs. They sound pretty, but sometimes they like to be in Latin just to confuse non-Catholics. Greg and Brigid didn't sing either. We were equally confused. Besides "_per say_" and "_veni, vidi, vichi_", none of us had really any practice with the stuff. Greg and I pretended while Brigid stood there and shook. The song ended and the pastor began talking.

That was when it happened.

One of the old Polish women was reading out of the Bible. Her voice was rough and she kept on pausing. I think I was the first to notice what was happening, but everyone else was quick to follow. There was a knocking sound and I looked up from the floor tile I'd been staring at. The casket was shaking around like the body inside was trying to escape, almost ready to fall off the stand. Within ten seconds, even the pastor stopped to look. My eyes grew wide at the next thing I saw. The statue of the Virgin Mary in the corner twitched her arm down. Most of the other people were too worried over the casket to notice that all the other statues were beginning to move and stretch too. The organ began to play, but the old lady at the keyboard fell back out of shock while it went through the song "Amazing Grace". Everyone was out of their seats and panicking. It was crazy.

"Brigid!" I gasped. Looking over, I saw that her eyes were closed, her whole body shaking and trembling. Carefully, I nudged her. "Stop it!" She didn't answer.

By now the whole church was in a panic. The pastor was unsure about what to do, if he should run for the holy water or not. The little boy and two girls that were dressed in white alter-server dresses actually began crying and hid behind the pastor's large chair before it began to wobble on its own. The old women were screaming, hurting my ears.

"Brigid! Brigid!" I looked over to see Greg trying to get Brigid to snap out of it without causing more of a scene. Brigid just kept her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears.

"I want this to be over," she just barely whispered. I could hear her accent was strong. I had not actually heard her accent that strong in a long time, even when she made it come out on purpose. "I want this to bugger off. She was such a bonnie lass to boot. Why did the Good Lord Almighty let this happen? Ruby…"

"Brigid!" I snapped, doing my best to not shout. "Remember Luke!"

Suddenly Brigid's eyes snapped open and she finally saw what was going on all around her. She had been so trapped in her own little world that she nearly screamed when she saw everything moving around. A few seconds passed and everything stopped moving, even the people. No one wanted to move. Only my friends and I knew it was safe, but we didn't want the other people there to know that.

That's when I realized the true potential of Brigid's power. Looking around, there were all sorts of statues of saints and religious people that were twisted and frozen into interesting positions. Some candlesticks were in different places than when the service started. The coffin holding Ruby had stopped to that it was teetering on the edge of the stand. Finally, it fell off the stand, cracking the weak lock and allowing Ruby's body to roll out. Her arms and legs were crooked and bent, like she had been alive for those last few minutes and was trying to escape. A couple of the older people in the room fell to their knees and began praying once they saw the total damage Brigid had done.

"This…" the pastor said weakly, "…this is a disaster." He was shaking even more than Brigid had. He stared at the corpse and grimaced. "Whatever we did, we did it wrong."

I noticed movement to my left and was just able to catch Brigid running for the exit out of the corner of my eye. She was in tears. Greg quickly followed her, leaving me with Mr. H, who was so frightened, he couldn't breathe real well.

"What was that…?" he was finally able to squeak. His eyes watered at the sight of Ruby's body on the cold church floor, hair flung onto her lifeless face.

"I don't know Mr. H," I lied nervously. "I really don't know."

I looked around the church to see that no one was moving to put Ruby's corpse back in the casket. Everyone either stared at her or the statues that had clearly changed position. Some were even headed towards the exits, to scared to want to stay. Gritting my teeth, I walked over to the casket and righted it. I looked back at Mr. H before touching what was my friend, getting his nod of approval. I carefully picked her up and placed her back. My tears were hot as they rolled down the side of my face. After brushing the hair away from her face, I whispered one final thing before closing the casket.

"She didn't mean to. We're sorry."

When I stood up straight I saw that the church was almost empty. The pastor was still there, along with Mr. H and the old organ lady. The little altar-kids were still hiding under a ledge. My only piece of comfort was when Greg walked in, Brigid following close behind. Brigid's face was red from crying and embarrassment. Greg just looked like he was going to collapse as they both walked over to my side.

"Which one of you spoke of the Evangelical?" asked the pastor as he walked over to the three of us, probably braver now that the casket was closed.

"Who?" Greg asked. Yeah, we may know our religion's name, but that doesn't mean we know a lot about it.

"One of you spoke the name of St. Luke and the terror stopped," the pastor said. "I could just barely hear it. Which one of you was it?"

"Me," I said.

"Thank you," the pastor replied, bowing his head. "You must have a very talented hand to have gained his assistance."

"I guess…" I shrugged. The entire time, I couldn't help but feel something in the pit of my gut telling me that this was far from over.

Sometimes, I hate it when I'm right.

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**Previous Installments in Descending Order**

Painless Interrogation (ID: 3417124)

August 30th (ID: 3357804)

Still Life (ID:3350569)


End file.
